Another sweetheart deal to political insiders from the PDC

Thanks again, Jack, for pointing this out.  All politics is local, and Portland is no exception.  While I am sure that hiring a deputy director with an evolving role at $135K per year is truly indispensable maybe the PDC should focus some energy on actually getting paid back on some of its loans.

Of course the $135K give away to someone on the mayor's staff seems paltry when you actually examine the  PDC's budget.  This is a somewhat scary picture.  The majority of the PDC's funding comes from the city ($113 million of $183 million for this fiscal year).  While the PDC claims this amount is in decline, it is representing an increasingly larger percentage of the PDC's total budget.  This is occurring while the PDC's income from actual property investment and development (interest on investments, loan collections, and property income) are all decreasing.

Of course, the PDC will point to the fact their investments create jobs and increase property value.  However, with a yearly administrative overhead of $17 million, it is easy to imagine alternative investments with the taxpayer's money which would provide similar modest increases in those areas with decreased costs.